


ZA: Week 1

by ID_Locke



Category: Original Work
Genre: Gen, M/M, Zombies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-03
Updated: 2020-02-03
Packaged: 2021-02-28 01:21:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 9
Words: 13,556
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22545484
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ID_Locke/pseuds/ID_Locke
Summary: The zombie apocalypse has started and its global in nature. Some people have prepared for this. Some never believed it was anything more than the stuff of Hollywood movies. Unfortunately its real, happening now and whether you survive or not is going to be one part preparation and one part luck.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 4





	1. Day 0-Late Afternoon

**Author's Note:**

> Individual ficlets written from the perspective of the characters from my zombie novels, ZA: Run & Gun and ZA: And The dead Shall Rise. This novelette can be read as a stand alone or as a prequel to the previously mentioned novels.

ZA: Week 1; Day 0-Late Afternoon

~Tracey~

The screams were easily heard even through my closed office door, and I sighed. I looked at the security monitors set into the far wall of my office trying to spot what was causing the ruckus this time. I really hoped it wasn’t going to be anything along the lines of the bizarre incident last week when an inattentive parent let his two-year-old gnaw on the packaging for a lure only to have said lure catch the hungry kid through the lip. That had been a horrifying experience for everybody involved.

The monitors showed people running out of the store in a panic, knocking down displays and each other as they crowded the exit doors. I frowned and wondered what the hell was going on. I was almost out of my seat when I saw something that made the blood freeze in my veins and think I’d watched one too many horror flicks lately. One of the monitors showed a kid no older than twelve crouched over an adult sprawled out on the floor in the sporting goods aisle. 

The kid was eating the adult’s innards.

My hands fumbled across the keyboard, zooming in on the kid’s face, praying that it was just a college movie project filming in my store that hadn’t been cleared with me first. That notion quickly vanished when I saw the way the kid’s hand plunged into the body and pulled out stuff that should never see the light of day outside of an operating room. I watched with bile rising in my throat as the kid stuffed entrails in his mouth and had them mostly slither out of the gaping hole where his throat should’ve been. Regardless of how good a film program Ryerson had, there was no way college kids could afford the type of special effects necessary for what I was watching. What I was looking at was terrifyingly real.

Movement in the background of the screen had me pulling back the view. Another kid roughly the same age as the one having a gruesome dinner shambled into view. Seeing that kid truly sealed the deal that it wasn’t a movie being filmed in the store. The little girl was wearing a sleeveless frilly sundress, and I could clearly see that one of her arms had been ripped off at the elbow, the loose shreds of skin that should’ve covered bone flapping slowly as she walked. The rest of her arm had big chunks of flesh torn away, revealing muscle and bone. There was no blood gushing from the gruesome injuries or trailing on the floor and she appeared completely unbothered by it. She dropped to her knees in front of the corpse and started to feed with the other kid.

My breath wheezed in my chest, and there was a faint roaring in my ears as the rational part of my mind tried to insist that what I saw just couldn’t be real. I stared at the monitor in shock for several seconds before my brain said, “Fuck it, this is real,” and finally kick-started itself. My carefully thought out plan of action--which I honestly never believed I’d need--snapped into place in my head. 

First goal: get to the safety of my apartment, barricade myself inside for several days, and stay glued to the emergency broadcast channel to know how well or shittily this situation was being dealt with. I had absolutely no doubts that there were more out in the world than just the two infected I was watching snack on some poor slob beside the soccer ball rack. I scanned the other monitors, the store surprisingly empty now and panned the cameras when I didn’t immediately see anything. The camera sweeps showed me a few other possibly infected individuals stumbling around, and I thanked my lucky stars that there was an employee entrance that didn’t require travel through the store to reach. 

I hit the emergency button to shut and lock the main exits. I wanted to keep out anything else as I knew I’d need to come back in a few days to fully load up and get the hell out of the city. I was betting that the powers that be would completely mishandle the situation, and we’d go from bad to pretty much fucked in under a week. I grabbed my keys and sent up a heartfelt thank you to whatever god had seen fit to finally have a day of sunshine after nearly a week of rain so I could ride my electric bike to work instead of taking the subway. I’d have been so completely screwed if I’d needed to use public transit to get home.

I hefted the baseball bat I kept in a corner of my office and cautiously opened my door, ready to either slam it shut or make a quick but quiet run for the back door. The hallway was clear, so I bolted out of the store, jumped on my bike and headed for the safety of my apartment as fast as my bike would go. Chaos was already unfolding on the streets as I drove home. I barely avoided cars and people careening wildly on the streets and sidewalks not to mention the infected that lurched randomly into traffic. A deep certainty settled in my guts as I pulled up to my apartment building and raced up the stairs to my unit, bolting the door securely behind me. After my harrowing ten minute ride home, I was positive that we’d skipped right over bad and went directly to very much fucked.

People had laughed at me when I said I had a good, solid plan for surviving the zombie apocalypse. Who was laughing manically now?


	2. Day 0-Late Afternoon (Konrad)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Same-sex marriage has been legal Canada-wide since 2005 (some provinces made it legal in 2003/04). Openly gay, lesbian, bi-sexual and transgender military members was made legal in 1992 after repealing a previous military law that would release these personnel from service. 
> 
> The first same-sex marriage for a military member happened in 2004. The first same-sex military marriage took place in 2005. All same-sex marriages within the military provide spouses with the same benefits and rights as opposite-sex partnerships.

** ZA: Week 1 - Day 0-Late Afternoon **

~Konrad~

I watched the fifth emergency vehicle in five minutes scream past me in one hell of a hurry and wondered what was going on. Oshawa was a fair-sized city at a hundred and fifty thousand people, and while it wasn’t strange to see cop cars flying down the road with the lights flashing, it was unusual to see three tactical support units chasing the cruisers in that short a span of time. I pulled out into traffic and headed for home, my left leg aching and feeling overstrained from the physio I’d just been to. I was willing to swear on a stack of bibles that physiotherapists were sadistic motherfuckers whose only real pleasure in life was torturing those unable to really fight back. Fine, I did have better mobility because of the on-going physio, but it still hurt like a bitch and made me cranky.

I pulled into the underground parking garage of my building, grabbed my cane and leaned heavily on it as I got out of the smart car. I grimaced both from the achy throbbing of my leg and my need of the cane. I didn’t necessarily hate my cane. The cane was beautiful and an extremely thoughtful gift from my husband, Jase. It was the fact that I needed a cane at all that pissed me off and frustrated me.

My limp was more pronounced than usual as I made my way to the elevator. I muttered under my breath about the unfairness of it all. I’d be wiped for the next twelve hours because of the stupid weakness and CPSP, central post stroke pain, in my leg, which was why I always made my physio appointments for as late in the day as possible. That way, I’d still be able to get the most out of my day and could make like a slug on the couch for the rest of the evening without feeling guilty for not being able to do things without a hell of a lot of effort. I stepped into the elevator, pressed the button for my floor and leaned against the wall, biting back a quiet groan at the sudden hot flare of pain in my leg as I watched the numbers rise on the display.

I wished Jase was home, but he had another week of duty at Canadian Forces Base Trenton before he had weekend leave. This living apart thing sucked. No matter how many phone calls we made, Skype chats we had or texts we sent, I missed him with an ache that hurt worse than my leg even on the most painful of days, and that was saying a lot. That our living apart was entirely my doing made me close my eyes and sigh softly.

I’d being doing it for the past six months, but I couldn’t live apart from Jase any longer. It was too painful. It was unnecessarily hard not only for me but for Jase, too. He’d been an utter saint to go along with my idea that it would be easier for me to live off base where I wouldn’t feel so depressed about not being able to do my job in the military anymore. I was just going to have to suck it up and deal with the disappointment of no longer being able to be part of the military doing what I loved because living without Jase was so much harder.

A little spurt of anger made me clench my fist at what had been stolen from me, but it was useless and directionless anger. The doctors still had no idea why I had the TIA stroke or why I was one of the minority of people who didn’t recover from the effects within a few days. After a little over a year since the TIA, my neurologist told me that I should consider the neurological and physical effects permanent. He said that while I could regain some mobility, I’d never be one hundred percent again and I’d have to accept that and learn to live within my limitations. That was hella depressing and had sent me into a fit of rage once I’d gotten home from that appointment.

It’d taken me two days to clean up the mess I’d made when I’d thrown or upended things in my anger. I’d been pissed off all over again as I started to clean because I was hampered by my weak leg and arm, two of the things that’d pissed me off so badly in the first place. I’d learned the valuable lesson then of not losing my shit unless Jase was home so he could help me clean up.

I entered the condo and tossed my keys into the decorative bowl on the low bookcase near the door. The condo was warm, but not uncomfortably so. I turned the AC off despite the oppressive humidity of the July day, not liking the way the AC dried out the air and made the insides of my nose itch. I leaned against the wall as I toed off my runners, grunting in annoyance at needing the extra support of the wall to keep from falling over. I headed for the fridge, grabbed a beer, swiped my cell from the charger and pocketed it, not wanting to juggle my beer, cane and cell all at once.

I stepped out onto the balcony just in time to hear another wail of sirens. I looked down and saw more emergency vehicles tearing down the road, an ambulance and another police cruiser this time. Just as I was about to take a seat, the copper chopper flew overhead headed in the same direction as the emergency vehicles. Whatever was going down had to be big to get that much of a response. I supposed I’d see what it was when I watched the news later. I sat on the lounge chair and sighed a little as I stretched my legs out.

I turned my phone on ready to send a text to Jase about wanting to move back to the base and was barraged instead by multiple text messages from Jase and Tracey. I scrolled through them and wondered what type of punking they were trying to pull on me. Jase and Tracey’s messages said the ZA was happening, and I was to call or text them right away. _Riiiight_. Like I was going to fall for something that stupid. Just because I had some neurological issues didn’t mean I was mental. I sent a text to Jase asking him if he could talk. Depending on what he was doing and what shift he was working, I might not get a response for several hours. If driving a car and texting was bad, flying a chopper and texting was easily ten times worse. I also sent a text to Tracey calling him an asshole and telling him I wasn’t going to fall for a story that lame. Less than a minute after I sent the text to Tracey, my phone rang, Tracey’s name and number popping up on the caller ID.

“Konrad, please tell me you’re somewhere safe. Barricade yourself and hunker down. This shit is real. Swear to god. I saw kids eating an adult in the sporting goods section of the store a couple of hours ago. Shit has hit the fan in a big way here, and I’m sure it’s going to be heading your way if it hasn’t already made it there,” Tracey said his voice a little strained.

“Zombies? Seriously, Tracey? Did Jase put you up to this? You guys know I don’t do practical jokes, and I will retaliate with extreme prejudice if that’s what you two are trying to pull on me,” I warned.

“No fucking joke, Konrad. Haven’t you been near a radio or TV or something in the last hour? Have you checked Facebook? They’re going batshit on there. Same with Twitter. This shit is all over the local news, and they’re saying it’s gone global. The government is denying that, of course, but they are telling people to stay indoors and avoid anyone who looks like they might be infected. Go turn on the TV. Any channel. I swear to god this is on every damn station. Go check. I’ll wait.”

“Facebook is a tool of the Devil,” I said automatically before taking a pull on my beer.

“Whatever. Go check the god damn news, Konrad,” Tracey urged.

I frowned a little as I thought of the unusual number of emergency vehicles I’d seen in a very short period of time. It could be a coincidence that I’d seen that many vehicles in a short span, but I didn’t really believe in coincidence. If Tracey and Jase were trying to pull a prank, there was no way in hell Tracey would tell me to check the news because that would blow their story away. I mentally shrugged and dragged myself out of the lounge chair and limped heavily back into the condo, flicking the TV on as I sat on the couch.

I damn near dropped my beer at what I saw.

I’d tuned in just as the Toronto news station, CP24, was showing footage from a security camera on the exterior of their building on Queen Street West. A streetcar was stopped in its tracks with the doors thrown open, a small car crunched into the back of it. Other cars were jammed every which way in the street with some actually up on the sidewalk. The few people I could see on the road and the sidewalk lurched and stumbled around as if they weren’t aware of their surroundings, and most of them had what looked suspiciously like blood on their clothes. A few people had what I’d call critical injuries yet they were walking around like it was nothing. I did see one person dart out between cars only to run straight into one of the people lurching around. While the camera didn’t zoom in on the face of the runner, it was still easy to understand the sheer terror they felt when the lurcher grabbed them and started biting the runner’s face.

The live camera feed was abruptly replaced with a very shaken reporter. She urged people to go home and stay indoors, locking themselves securely inside until the authorities had the situation under control. According to the news anchor, reports were coming in from around the globe about attacks in the major cities like what was happening outside their front door.

“What the fucking hell, Tracey?” I demanded as I put my beer on the coffee table before heaving myself to my feet and making a beeline for the condo door, double-checking that I had thrown the dead bolt when I’d come in.

“No freaking clue. I’m as shocked as you. I mean, I know we’ve planned for the ZA for years, but it was just a fun sort of thing to do and nothing any one of us expected to really happen. Have you talked to Jase? He’ll know what’s going on or have some idea, right? With the scope of this thing the military has to be involved in trying to get this shit under control.”

I opened the tiny storage space near the door, cradling the phone between my ear and shoulder as I pulled out a long metal bar with plates on both ends. I backed out of the storage room and positioned the bar against the door, sliding it so that the holes in the plate lined up with the holes in the door. I ripped the baggie off the bar and started to twist the large bolts into the pre-drilled holes. Once I had the bar securely in place, nothing was coming through that door without a hell of a lot of effort.

“Jase might know something, but he probably won’t be able to say shit to me. I’m his husband, yeah, but I’m a civie now, and my need-to-know level of clearance is the exact same as yours, which is to say he can tell me dick squat. He’ll probably tell me something in a code I can figure out because you can bet your ass the military will be monitoring any calls going in or out of the base, but I doubt I’ll end up knowing much more than you.

“Lock up and hunker down, Tracey. Follow The Plan. Jase _will_ come for me, and we’ll meet up with you on the Islands just like we’ve discussed. I dunno how long the power will hold, but we both know as this gets bigger--and we know it will--communications will go down from overloading. When you steal whatever boat you can, scan the radio on the channel we set, and we’ll eventually find each other. I gotta hang up. I texted Jase just before I texted you, and I don’t want to miss his call. Stay safe, Tracey.”

“You too, Konrad. If you hear from Jase, let me know what he says if you can. I’ll bug out in a week as planned. I better see you guys then. I want people I trust at my back. And I want access to your stash of guns and ammo.”

I laughed. “I knew you were just friends with me because of my bitching rifle with the sweet scope.”

Tracey laughed, repeated for me to stay safe and hung up. I finished securing the metal bar to both the door and floor and headed for the bathroom. My leg throbbed in hot pain as I limped along without the help of my cane, but I ignored it. I had shit to do, and the cane would only get in my way. I pulled out a liner from under the sink and opened it in the tub. I cranked the cold water on and went back to the storage room, pulling out collapsible containers before heading to the kitchen to start filling them with water.

There was the possibility that we were blowing this whole thing out of proportion and the crisis would be resolved in a few days. I wasn’t going to hold my breath on that though, and I’d rather go through my emergency procedures and not need them than be stuck a few days down the road wishing I’d done what I was doing now. Preparing for the worst would also keep me from thinking too hard about the dangers the love of my life was probably involved in as part of his job in the military.


	3. Day 0-Mid-evening (Renji)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Billy Bishop is a real airport in downtown Toronto, Ontario, Canada, that is located on the Toronto Islands that are a very short distance from the shoreline. The world's shortest ferry ride is actually from the lakeshore to the island airport and is a whopping 120 meters (400 feet) and takes 90 seconds. No, I'm not making that up. Feel free to Google it. The airport is also currently accessible by a tunnel walkway built under the lakebed but at the time I wrote this series of stories, the tunnel hadn't been completed yet.
> 
> And as a shout out, I highly recommend flying via Porter Airlines (that operates out of Billy Bishop) any time you can as they are phenomenal with customer service, quality of airline service and pricing. While I don't specifically mention which airline Renji works for, you may assume it's Porter because they are awesome and go above and beyond for their customers based on my personal experience.

** ZA: Week 1 – Day 0-Mid-evening **

~Renji~

Our flight had been delayed again and again and again at Chicago’s O’Hare airport, and we’d been sitting at the gate for two hours without a single word of _why_ we were being held up. The airport authorities wouldn’t let us off-load the passengers, and they wouldn’t clear us for take-off either. As far as I could tell, there wasn’t any reason to keep the passengers on the plane since we’d now missed the final window that would allow us to land at Billy Bishop Airport on the Toronto Islands. The tower there shut down at eleven p.m., and no further flights were allowed to land after then without hefty fines and penalties. Considering that our travel time was two and a half hours from Chicago to Toronto and it was already nine-thirty p.m., we couldn’t fly home tonight and land at Billy Bishop. Keeping us hostage on the plane was pointless and uncomfortable.

There was nothing mechanically wrong with our plane, and as far as I knew, there weren’t any issues with the passengers, weather or the runways. Everybody was getting more than a little short tempered with the delay especially since the airport authorities were utterly silent about why we couldn’t leave. I was doing my best to accommodate the passengers along with Becka, the other attendant on the flight. We were trying to keep everyone comfortable, but even I was starting to lose my famous level of patience and beginning to worry about what was happening.

Most passengers had pulled out their cell phones and tablets after sitting at the gate for thirty minutes, and I couldn’t blame them as frustration mounted with the unnamed delay. Concerns started flying around the cabin as people checked their emails and Facebook and Twitter and discovered that there was some sort of terrorist attack or bio-weapon thing happening in many major cities around the world. The police were apparently working on getting the situation under control, and the government was telling people to avoid those who appeared infected. The government said they had the threat contained and that people were to go about their normal routines, but to keep an eye out for people who were acting strangely and avoid them. Social media had a different take on it, and I thought that the problem was likely somewhere between the government’s “everything is okay” stance and the hysteria of Facebook/Twitter declaring it the end of the world as we knew it.

Even so, I still made a call that took forever to connect to my parents in Toronto and told them to stay indoors and not go near anyone who was acting strange. They were worried about me, but I said I was fine and that I’d be home soon. I really hoped I hadn’t just lied to them.

While it was now full on night, the lights were on around the airport and were plenty bright to see by. There wasn’t a single plane moving within sight, and I could see planes on either side of ours that were also stuck at the gate. There were no sounds of planes taking off or landing either which was highly unusual for an airport as busy as O’Hare. I’d spotted a few of the ground crews in their bright safety vests, but they moved oddly and as if they weren’t sure where they were supposed to be going.

If there really was some sort of terrorist incident happening and the government was possibly grounding all flights as a safety precaution, then why weren’t military people coming to check passengers out if there was some sort of terrorist threat? Why weren’t we seeing military personnel or even just police or security guards?

I went to the cockpit again, bringing coffee to the pilots and hoping they’d finally heard something from the tower or been given the clearance to taxi to the runway or even permission to let the passengers off the plane. Any news would be good, really, and would likely help tone down some of the frustration and beginnings of fear we were all feeling. I was very good at my job, but even my people skills were being tested to the limit with what we were dealing with.

“Any word, Captain Ellis?” I asked as I handed him the coffee.

“Not even heavy breathing from the tower, Renji. I’ve got a really bad feeling about this situation,” the captain said with a frown. “There should be some type of chatter from the tower even if it’s to bitch about us bitching about being stuck here with no clue why.”

“You and your bad feelings, George,” the co-pilot said as he rolled his eyes before accepting his coffee. “Although, I have to agree that it is really strange that we’re not getting any response from the tower at all now. We’ve tried to raise them to find out what’s going on and... nothing. We haven’t heard a peep out of them in the past half-hour.”

That didn’t sound good at all, and a little ball of worry formed in my belly as I headed back into the main cabin. I just about jumped out of my skin when something banged heavily on the hatch window as I walked past. What I saw had me swearing under my breath in Japanese, and I instinctively backed away to the far wall, thankful that the hatch was locked from the inside.

A security guard with a large section of skin peeling off his face exposing the bone underneath was pressed to the small window. He pawed at the glass with a hand freshly missing several fingers leaving a horrifying red smear across the glass. His jaw opened and closed as if he was trying to chew his way through the window. Despite the terrible injuries the man had, he didn’t seem bothered by them one little bit, and that scared the daylights out of me. I was now willing to believe that in this instance, perhaps social media wasn’t blowing things out of proportion with its screaming about the world ending. I immediately turned around and went back into the cockpit.

“Captain Ellis, there’s a security guard at the hatch trying to get into the plane, and there’s something seriously wrong with him. His face is sliced open to the bone with the skin peeling off and he’s missing fingers. It’s like he doesn’t even notice any of that either,” I said with surprising calm in my voice despite the way my insides were clenching.

That got raised eyebrows from the pilots. The co-pilot, Craig, started to get up from his seat, no doubt to check on what I’d seen, when the radio crackled to life, a voice gasping raggedly between ominous noises in the background.

“They’re... here. Infected. We’re... all... dead. Get... away. Leave. Hur....” The voice ended in a gurgle that didn’t bode well for the owner of the voice.

“Tower? Say again. Tower?” Craig said into the mic.

Silence greeted him even after he repeated his request multiple times. Craig and George looked at each other, their expressions grim. Craig got up from his seat, went out briefly and came back into the cockpit, his face pale.

“I really should learn to listen to those bad feelings of yours, George. Renji was right. There’s a very fucked up security guard on the other side of the door wanting in. He’s hurt bad enough from the little I can see that he should be either screaming in agony, curled up in a little ball on the floor, or should be dead from blood loss. Whatever is going on is very, very fucked up right now. The tower was right. We gotta go. Now.”

“Shit. You’re sure, Craig? Maybe it’s just the one guy.”

“Never more sure that there is some seriously fucked up shit going on out there. The guy moved to the side a bit and I saw two more really messed up people in the gangway stumbling their way to us. One could be a freak thing. Three is way more than coincidence and a big screaming signal to get the fuck out of Dodge. Add in what the tower said and I’m sure we’re really not safe here.

“Eventually we’ll run out of food and water, and we’ll have to leave the plane. And I, for one, don’t want to be walking straight into a whole pack of those whatever they are. Screw the fines for landing at Billy Bishop after eleven. They’re totally worth it compared to what’s going on outside of this plane right now.”

“If shit is going down here, what’s to say this shit isn’t all over the place? What makes you think it’s not happening at Billy Bishop?” Captain Ellis asked.

“Why the hell would terrorists want to attack Toronto or even Canada for that matter? We’re too nice and haven’t pissed anybody off on a global front. The airport is on an island, and the only thing there is the airport, and it’s nowhere the size of this sprawling one. We’d be safer there than sitting here. You fly, or I fly. I don’t care, but we can’t stay here and wait to die, George, and you know that. We’re fuelled up and ready to go and were just waiting on tower clearance. If they’re all dead like that guy from the tower said, then fuck needing clearance because it isn’t coming. Let’s just go.”

Captain Ellis pursed his lips. “There’ll be hell to pay if we’re jumping the gun, but my gut is telling me to get as far away from here as we can. Renji, go tell our passengers to strap in. We’re heading home, and the ride might be a little bumpy along the way.”

“Yes, sir,” I said as I stepped out of the cockpit and closed the door. I picked up the mic and ignored the hideously injured guard that was still pressed to the small window. I put a warm smile on my lips and hoped my voice stayed steady as I told the passengers we were leaving for Toronto and to turn off their cell phones and put their trays into the upright and locked position. I really hoped Craig was right about Billy Bishop.


	4. Day 1-Mid-day (Guy)

** ZA: Week 1; Day 1-Mid-day **

~Guy~

This was really not happening. There was no way in hell it could be. Stuff like this only happened in movies and comic books. I stood on the balcony of my fifth floor apartment and stared in disbelief at the complete what-the-fuckery that was happening in the street below. Cars were abandoned every which way, crowded together in the mother of all traffic jams. The people on the street were... wrong in the wrongest way possible.

They were zombies.

That wasn’t drunken imagination or half-asleep fuzziness on my part. I was stone cold sober, and I’d been awake for several hours, the incessant ringing of my phone waking me to the sounds of my mom’s near hysterical voice on the other end. She’d babbled about her neighbour’s teenage daughter, Ellen, banging on their door and when my mom opened the door to see what the problem was, Ellen attacked her. She’d clawed at my mom while making god-awful groaning noises and trying to bite her. Mom said people were going crazy in the streets and that she was frightened.

My father had taken the phone from my mom when she started to cry, and for the first time in my life, he sounded shaken and scared.

My dad said he’d hit Ellen hard with his cane, and it was as if she’d felt nothing. He said Ellen had scratched up Mom’s arms good and even bit him on the hand when he’d pushed his arm between the two to try and get their suddenly crazy neighbour away from Mom. My dad said he’d tried to call the police but got a busy signal for 911. He said he’d bustled mom into the car to go to the hospital because he was afraid Ellen had caught something that made her act so strange, but as soon as he got to the first major street, it was chaos with cars and buses packed tight and even up on the sidewalks. People had been running and screaming everywhere and some had lurched around attacking others. He’d turned the car around, went home and locked the doors.

My dad quietly said he wasn’t feeling very good since Ellen bit him and was worried. He said he felt hot like he had a fever and that it was getting hard to concentrate. The line went dead shortly after that, and I’d tried calling back for half an hour before my phone rang again. My mom was on the line, and she was beyond hysterical. She said she’d locked herself in the bathroom and Dad was pounding on the door to get in. She thought that whatever made Ellen go crazy was now happening to Dad.

She said he just keeled over with no warning and didn’t respond when she called his name and tried to wake him up. She’d put her ear to his chest and hadn’t heard a heartbeat, so she’d started CPR. She said one of the times when she went to give him mouth-to-mouth between chest compresses, he’d suddenly bitten her lip hard enough to make it bleed and hadn’t wanted to let go. She’d managed to pull a lamp down and hit him in the head with it just to get away, but he shrugged off the attack like it was nothing when it should’ve knocked him out cold.

She’d told me people were going crazy and to lock myself in my apartment until the police managed to calm everything down. A loud crash made my mother scream, and it sounded like she dropped the phone on the floor. Heavy banging followed and my mom was swearing in a combination of French and English between shrill screams and pleas to my dad to stop what he was doing. The sound of wood splintering was almost lost in my mom’s yelling and was quickly followed by a really ominous thud. The screaming suddenly stopped and was replaced with wet ripping sounds I could’ve gone my whole life without hearing.

The phone disconnected not long after that, and I’d stared at it stupidly for several minutes before frantically trying to reach my parents again with no success. I tried to dial 911 but only got only a busy signal or a recorded voice saying all operators were busy and to remain indoors and not answer the door for anyone. I turned the TV on to a local news station only to find the emergency broadcast screen showing with the repeating message to stay indoors and to avoid those who appeared to be infected. That was what led me to stand on my balcony, staring at the carnage below.

Everything had seemed normal enough when I went to bed in the wee hours of the morning. I’d covered an extra ten-hour shift at the gym for the night manager on top of my regular eight-hour shift when he had to suddenly leave because his wife had gone into early labour. I’d been bone tired when I got home and simply fell into bed, asleep before my head touched the pillows after more than twenty-four hours awake.

Now.... I was pretty sure my parents were dead based on that last phone call, and the grief was almost crippling. The world seemed to have gone to shit in the twelve hours I’d been asleep, and I had absolutely no fucking idea what was going on, what, if anything, was being done to fix the situation or how I was going to get my ass out of the city in one piece. Obviously, I needed a plan of some kind and a metric fuck-ton of luck. And guns. Guns would be awesome, but this was Canada and getting my hands on firearms was not going to be easy. The best weapon I had on hand for zombie bashing was the barbell pole from my weight set, and I could see that not working so well in confined spaces.

I shuddered and turned away as several zombies swarmed somebody dumb enough to try to make a run for it. I shut the sliding door of the balcony, relieved beyond belief when the poor bastard’s screams were cut off by the sound deadening glass. Waiting a few days for the insanity to slow a bit and to take stock of what I needed and how to get it seemed like the beginnings of a fine plan to me.


	5. Day 2-Mid-morning (Jason)

** ZA: Week 1 – Day 2-Late Morning **

~Jason~

I was so tired and wrung out I could’ve probably doubled for one of the zombies wandering around, minus the gore; although I was pretty sure I probably stank nearly as bad as one of the undead. We’d gotten called into the fray as observers when reports started popping up about the dead walking and snacking on the living. Once the government realized that it was a bigger problem than the local authorities could handle, we’d gone into action providing mostly support in trying to contain the outbreak. I could’ve told them that was pointless, but nobody was asking me, and I wasn’t high enough up the chain of command to even give my opinion to anybody who mattered. Hell, it took the military thirty-six hours to even admit officially that the dead were walking the streets.

I realized it minutes after seeing my first zombie.

My phone was burning a hole in my pocket. I knew Konrad had sent me a text god knows how long ago in response to my text, but I hadn’t had the two minutes I needed to call him back. I knew Konrad would hole up in the condo and that anybody trying to bust in would have a hell of a time even with a battering ram. If somebody managed to get in, they’d be faced with the business end of a firearm. Konrad was a damn fine shot, and he wouldn’t be at all concerned with trying to talk the person into going away peacefully. He’d shoot first, loot the body, toss it out into the hall and then secure the place again.

I ducked into an empty room and hit the number for the condo. I got a recorded message saying they were experiencing heavier than normal call traffic and to hang up and try my call again in a few minutes. I swore under my breath as I disconnected the call. I didn’t doubt that the lines were jammed and that I’d have a hard time getting hold of Konrad, but I’d had to try. Panic was the state of the world at the moment and everybody and their dog were trying to reach loved ones to check on them. I was no different.

I drummed my fingers on my thigh and thought quickly. I knew one of the guys in the radio room since he played D&D with me, Konrad and a couple of other dudes. I had no idea if he was on duty or not, but given the way the brass was pushing all of us, he could be pulling long shifts like everyone else. I checked my watch, and while I’d be way early to try to get Konrad on the ham radio, the power was still up, so he was probably keeping it on in case I tried to contact him that way. Decision made, I headed for the radio room and hoped that Harry was on shift and would let me sneak in a five-minute conversation with Konrad.

*****

“Jase! Thank god. You’re all right, right?” Konrad asked anxiously.

“Yeah, I’m okay, babe. Tired as fuck and in desperate need of a shower, but fine. You good? You didn’t get caught up in any of this shit, did you?”

“I’m golden. I was coming back from a late physio appointment when the shit from T.O. started rolling my way. Door is barred, water stored in every container we have, I’ve got some firepower in easy reach if not actively on my hip, and I’m making my way through all the fresh and frozen goods first before the power goes. I got this, Jase, but I’ll feel better when you’re beside me. How’s it looking out there?”

I cast a quick glance at Harry who pretended he was looking for some paperwork across the room. He shook his head and tapped his ear without turning around. I’d thought there’d be somebody listening to messages that went out or recording them, but Harry was being an awesome dude and helping to keep my butt out of the fire by confirming that. Time for secret codes that Konrad would get that hopefully the listeners wouldn’t.

“I’m out on long sorties in rotation, but the situation is about what you’d expect. I wish you were still the mech on my baby because I know you’d outfit her exactly right for whatever I’m doing. The guy I’ve got now is good, but you’re way more invested in my coming back in one piece because you love my overworked ass.”

There was a tiny moment of silence from Konrad before I got a soft laugh. That little pause told me that Konrad was reading between the lines of what I said to understand what I meant. Saying the situation was what he expected meant that we were pretty much fucked and that the government had no clue how to handle the situation. Telling Konrad that I wished he was the mechanic working on my bird was to let him know that I was still doing fly-overs and shit but that she wasn’t outfitted with the type of armour and guns that she should’ve been while flying into a hot zone.

“Because it’s a very fine ass. One of your better features,” Konrad said with a leer in his voice.

“Hey, did you manage to get back the DVD _Dawn of the Living Dead_ from Tracey? I know he keeps saying he gave it back but I swear he still has it. We’re stuck at _Night of the Living Dead_ and can’t watch _Day of the Living Dead_ when I’m home next weekend because it’s just wrong to series jump. And it screws with our commemorative boxed set to have one missing. When we meet up with him next week, we’re going to have to demand he hand over the damn DVD.”

Konrad was quiet for a few seconds before he snorted softly. I was sure that he’d understand my basically telling him that we’d gone from the relatively isolated incidences of zombies as in _Night of the Living Dead_ to the more wide spread problem of zombies in the large population and spreading out into the burbs as the infection grew like in _Dawn of the Living Dead_. I was also telling him that we weren’t quite at the point of everything breaking down like in _Day of the Living Dead_ , but that I expected it to go that way, so we were going to follow The Plan and meet up with Tracey in a week.

“We’ll get it back when we see him. He’s invited us to his new cottage on the weekend. Says he has a room for us and everything, but we’re supposed to bring along some of our cool shit because he has a new campaign planned for us, and we’re going to need to be geared right if we want to survive. He said to bring your plus-two Boots of Escaping and my plus-four Vorpal Sword of Undead Slaying. He also said to thank you for trading him your Helm of Mindflayer Resistance for his plus-three Dagger of Life Drain.”

Harry turned and frowned at me. He’d been after me for ages to trade him my Helm of Mindflayer Resistance, and I’d always refused. I shrugged at him and grinned. Harry gave me the finger, tapped his watch and went back to his “filing” while grumbling to himself. I hadn’t really traded Tracey my helm for his dagger, but I understood what Konrad was telling me. We would meet Tracey on the Islands once we made our way to T.O., we were to bring our best arms, and together, we’d manage to survive the ZA.

“Awesome. I gotta go, babe. I snuck into the radio room while the guy on duty went to the can, but he’ll be back any second. I love you, and I’ll see you this weekend when all this shit gets sorted out.”

“Love you too, Jase. Don’t be late and leave early if you can. Traffic is always a bitch on the weekend, and I don’t want to waste a single second of your leave with you stuck in traffic.”

I stood, feeling a little better after talking to Konrad but still wishing desperately that he was on base with me. Harry slid into the seat I vacated and shot me another dirty look.

“Tracey sucks, and you suck. I’ve offered you my Spelljammer Chair last time for that damn helm, and you give it up to Tracey for a plus-three Dagger of Life Drain? What the fuck, Jase?” Harry said as he stabbed buttons.

“Yeah, Tracey does suck. Really well actually. Konrad thought so, too. Tracey’s oral skills helped seal the deal,” I said with a small smirk.

Harry stared at me for a few seconds before he made a disgusted noise in the back of his throat. “Way too much info, Jase. I could’ve gone my whole life without knowing any of that. Tracey obviously wanted the helm way more than I did. Get the hell out of here before somebody wanders by and asks what you’re doing here. Hey, I’m off this weekend, too. If you guys are playing then, mark me down, okay?”

I clapped Harry on the shoulder and smiled. “Sure thing.”

I hoped Harry would make it through the ZA, but he seemed to be of the opinion that the ZA was something we’d have under control in a few more days. While there was a possibility of that happening, I wasn’t going to hold my breath on it. Or bet my life. I waved goodbye to Harry and headed for my quarters. I needed sleep before I could fly again, and I most definitely needed to be at least halfway rested if I had any hope of getting to Konrad in the next few days. Just how I was going to get to him when he was an hour and a half away with the roads jammed with cars... I’d figure that out when the time came. Nothing, not hell, high water or a zombie apocalypse was going to keep me from my husband.


	6. Day 2- Early afternoon (Tracey)

** ZA: Week 1; Day 2-Early Afternoon **

~Tracey~

As soon as I got home, I’d filled every collapsible jug and capable container I owned with water and lined and filled my tub, too. While I had a good deal of fresh water, I was still being cautious and not going crazy with it. The power had flickered briefly a few hours ago but remained on. I didn’t think that would last though. I was prepared with a few fully-fuelled propane tanks for the bar-b-que and a jury-rigged solar panel array as well as a couple of car batteries for the electric cooler. For the time being, I was leaving my perishables in the fridge, but once the power died for good, I’d move the most temperature sensitive items to the cooler.

My apartment door had the dead bolt thrown, and while it was a bit of a pain in the ass to climb over, I’d also jammed my loveseat against the door and opposite wall. If something wanted to get through that door, it was going to have to be wicked strong to do it. My apartment was on the second floor, something I’d specifically been looking for when apartment hunting. The balcony was roughly twelve feet off the ground, well above what a zombie could reach but still easily accessible with an emergency ladder. When it came time to leave my apartment, the ladder and balcony would be the route I was taking.

I stood on my balcony and scanned the street with binoculars. I had a decent view of the semi-residential street, and what I saw really wasn’t encouraging. There were only a few zombies shuffling around, but it only took one to catch you in a bad position, and it’d be game over. Some moved faster than others, but I hadn’t seen any that literally ran. I’d seen a few opportunities for a zombie to sprint after someone, but it hadn’t happened while I’d been watching. That didn’t mean it couldn’t happen, and I’d still be extra cautious when I left the relative safety of my apartment.

It was still too early to leave my apartment and start phase two of my plan to get the hell out of the city. As assumed, the government and emergency services had no freaking clue what was going on or how to deal with it. In the news reports before the live broadcasts had gone off the air, the outbreak appeared to have started in several random, densely populated areas on a global scale. Terrorist attack had been the phrase bandied around, but nobody had any proof, and that was as good an explanation as an accident in a bio-lab that got out of hand faster than anyone realized.

After watching some of the carnage, I’d come to a few conclusions. Not everybody bitten turned when they died and the time it took to go from clean to infected seemed to vary greatly. I’d observed somebody get what should’ve been a minor bite yet join the ranks of the undead in less than ten minutes. I’d also seen someone wander around in a daze for several hours after being bitten before suddenly feeling the need to snack on somebody’s brains. I’d seen a corpse lay still for five minutes before animating, another remain unmoving for several hours before rising and some appeared to just stay dead.

That was going to make navigating anywhere a whole lot harder and more nerve wracking than I’d imagined. I’d do it because I would eventually have to leave my apartment to at least forage for supplies. It was only a one-bedroom, although a big one, and I didn’t have anywhere to store a true stockpile of goods. I had a storage locker in the building, but I never stored anything in there that I thought I might need immediately.

One of my neighbours came out onto her balcony and said hello with a shaky voice. She was a nice, older lady, and I’d given her some survival tips, but I highly doubted she’d make it to the end of the week. She was still acting like the authorities would get everything straightened out in the next few days. She was on crutches after recently having her hip replaced, and that was the only reason she’d been at home when the ZA started to go down. She had a son and daughter-in-law living somewhere in the north end of the city and was adamant about driving to their house to wait out the crisis with them despite what she could see happening along our street and her limited mobility. I told her I didn’t think she’d be able to make it to her car without being attacked and that she needed to stay locked in her apartment, but I doubted she’d listen to me.

“I locked my door like you told me to, but somebody rattled the door knob and thumped against my door. It was Mr. Warity from across the hall. I looked through the peephole, and since he’s the only four hundred pound man in the building, I’m certain it was him. He was very badly injured, but he didn’t seem to notice. I’m really frightened now. Can I come over to your apartment? There’s safety in numbers, right?”

I hated to be a bastard to such a nice lady, but I had my own ass to look out for, and I truly believed that even with my help, she’d end up dead the first time away from the quasi-safety of her apartment. My balcony was separated from hers by a good eight feet of space. There was no way a lady her age recovering from hip replacement would be able to make the jump.

“I can’t, Mrs. Cellinski. I have my love seat wedged between the door and wall as a safety precaution, and it won’t move now.”

She nodded as if she expected me to say that. She turned and went back into her apartment without another word. I went back into mine and hauled out the flexible spy cam I’d picked up a year ago. I carefully fed it through the mail slot in my door and scanned the hallway. Sure enough, Mr. Warity was shuffling down the hall, testing door knobs and smacking his hands against doors as he went. The camera caught a full on view of him, and my blood chilled.

Blood covered the front of his white shirt, and bone showed through at his cheek just below his eye, the skin peeled away and barely attached to his face. He was definitely one of the infected, and I idly wondered how he was turned when he rarely left his apartment. I heard a door open and saw Mrs. Cellinski open her door right as Mr. Warity reached it. I shouted at her to close the door, but it was too late.

I heard the sickening crunch as she tried to slam the door shut but caught Mr. Warity’s hand between the door and jamb. She screamed as she tried to shove the door closed even as Mr. Warity pushed his weight against it to get at her. I pulled the camera back and tried to block out her screams. There was nothing I could do for her now. It was almost worse when she suddenly stopped screaming, and I heard the door close with finality.

I leaned my head against the wall and took slow, even breaths. There was absolutely no way in hell that I’d open that door now. Walking death was in the hall, and I wasn’t dumb enough to actively court it.


	7. Day 3-Early morning (Eddie)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am very aware that not every Aboriginal has a descriptive last name (or first name for that matter) like Eddie Kickinghorse (or like Jason Littlebird, who is another character in this world). I know several First Nation people who have entirely common names just as I know several who have more descriptive first/last names. My real life last name is common and I am of Aboriginal descent so I do get it from a very personal stand point. I'm using author license and adding some flavour here with my choice to use the last names that I have.

** ZA: Week 1 – Day 3 Early Morning **

~Eddie~

The city and maybe even the whole world was screwed. Utterly and completely screwed. I wasn’t an expert bio-chemist or anything, and what I knew about weaponized viruses could fit into a tea cup with plenty of room left over. It didn’t take a freaking genius, though, to figure out that the dead walking the streets and attacking the living was a level of bad so extreme there weren’t even words invented yet for how bad it was. To make matters worse, the dead were highly infectious, and the only way to deal with them was to destroy the brain with extreme prejudice.

I was cool with the destruction with extreme prejudice part.

What I wasn’t cool with was the dickhead I got stuck with as a partner. Jamison wasn’t the biggest asshole on the planet, but he was second runner-up and he’d only missed the top spot by one vote. He thought I was pretty much useless unless it was to get him coffee or pump more fuel into the boat or whatever other bullshit task might need to be done but that he was too lazy to do. I didn’t doubt for a second that I was also considered perfect cannon fodder if it came down to it. Fine, I wasn’t officially a cop yet, but I was only a few months from finishing my training. He wasn’t officially a cop either since he’d been in the same classes as me so I really wasn’t sure where his superior attitude was coming from. Unless that was related to his family being richer than god, which I was thinking was the case.

Jamison’s views on women in general were irritating and bordered on offensive. He also didn’t like Natives, saying we got a free ride off the backs of the hard-working white man. Like he’d ever had to work a hard day in his life, current zombie outbreak notwithstanding. That’s the attitude that pissed me off the most. Sure, I had access to stuff like funding for my college program and housing that people who aren’t Native can’t get, but I still had to work my ass off to pass the classes to get the damn diploma in police foundations that I was after. That diploma, contrary to what Jamison thought, wasn’t going to be handed to me just because of my heritage.

“What the hell is taking you so long, Kickinghorse?” Jamison shouted from the entrance to the harbour station as he watched me pump fuel into the police boat we were supposed to take out shortly.

“How fast the gas flows into the tank isn’t something I can speed up, Jamison. Keep your pants on. I’ll be done in another five minutes,” I yelled back.

“We were supposed to be out on patrol five minutes ago. I knew giving you the job to top up was going to take longer than it had to. Damn lazy Indian.”

I glared hot, painful death at Jamison. He’d have never made a comment like that where I could hear him if the world hadn’t gone to shit. He knew he could get away with it now though because of the chaos going on. Sure, I could still tell the desk sergeant what Jamison said and file an official complaint, but my having a racial slur tossed at me was pretty much at the bottom of the important list when compared to the losing battle we were fighting with zombies trying to eat our faces.

“Hey, Jamison,” I called, stopping him from going back into the station.

He turned and scowled at me. “What?”

“Accidents happen in all this chaos we’re dealing with. Be a real shame if I was distracted at a critical moment by something when a zombie was jumping you to try and snack on your non-existent brains,” I said with a vicious smile.

Jamison glared at me and opened his mouth to say something back when we heard a shot that sounded really, really close. Like within the station close. No other shots were fired, and that worried me as much as if there had been continuous gunfire. I stopped filling the boat, hung up the hose and ran over the dock to where Jamison stood. I drew my gun and nodded at the door to the station. A muscle twitched in Jamison’s jaw at what he probably saw as my ordering him around, but I didn’t give a shit. He drew his gun as well, grasped the door knob and gave me a quick look that plainly said be ready for anything. I nodded and blew out a soft breath. He was a towering dick, but he was a decent shot, and he wasn’t afraid to shoot first and ask questions later, something that had helped to save both our asses a few times.

Jamison took point and eased the door open into the main part of the harbour station where we’d been assigned. We slipped in and cased the hall. Nothing moved, and I couldn’t decide if that was a bad thing or not. We sidled cautiously down the hall ready for anything. We thought we had the station fairly well secured, but all it took was one door not being fully closed, and we could be up to our tits in zombies wickedly fast.

Jamison rounded the corner to the hall that had offices first, and he swore as he jerked back and plastered himself to the wall. I did the same thing wondering briefly what spooked him. Automatic gunfire sounded and bullets stitched up the wall, making us both swear as we hugged the wall. Jamison quickly poked his head around the corner and fired. I heard what could only be a body hitting the floor, and after waiting a few seconds, we looked around the corner. A cop lay on the floor, a hole drilled neatly through his forehead.

I swore again. This was bad. It wasn’t an itchy trigger finger that made Jamison shoot the guy. The numerous bites on the older cop’s arms marked him as a dead man walking even if he hadn’t technically been dead yet. I couldn’t stand Jamison, but it was a clean kill and his fast shooting probably saved our asses. I didn’t even want to think about how bad a zombie with a semi-automatic weapon had the potential of being.

He bent and grabbed the rifle from the dead cop, slinging it over his shoulder. We were both on high alert now. If there was a bitten cop in the station, there was an excellent chance that there were zombies or about-to-be-zombies, too. There was also the mystery of the first gunshot we’d heard from inside the station.

We made it to the front of the station to find the main doors slightly ajar. An older lady in a truly hideous shorts set was cowering in the corner, her hands over her ears as she repeated what sounded like a prayer or something over and over again. The desk sergeant was busy clubbing to death an older man who was probably the lady’s husband, while shouting at her to close the fucking door. I rushed to the door and shoved it closed against the two dead who reached it at the same time as I did. I leaned into the door and yelled for Jamison to bring something to secure the doors. He hurried over and used his cuffs to hold the handles together before snagging mine from my belt and adding them to his. I stepped back and blew out a silent breath when the doors only moved a few inches as the zombies pushed against them. The sergeant stood, breathing hard and pointed his gore covered nightstick at the old lady.

“You better not be infected, too. If you are, I swear to fucking god I’ll bash your head in just like his.”

“What the hell happened here?” I asked.

“The old lady and man pounded on the door begging to be let in, and Simpson, the fucking moron, opened the door to them even though the old coot had bite marks on his skinny chicken legs. They cleared the door, and Simpson goes to help the old man into a seat when the old man turns around and started biting Simpson’s arms. Simpson freaked, shoved the geezer off him, screamed we were ‘all going to die’ and took off leaving me to deal with this shit. Captain said Simpson was right and that we were all doomed before he walked away. No idea where that fucking coward went.”

“I shot Simpson in the hall,” Jamison said. “He detoured to the weapons locker and grabbed a semi-automatic rifle. No clue what he thought he was going to do with it. We heard a shot from in here while fuelling the boat. That’s why we ran in here.”

“We need to check the offices and make sure there’s no zombies in the making in any of them. Gotta get rid of the corpses, too, before they get all stinky in this heat. We should search the offices for anything useable while we’re at it if we’re going to hole up in here. We still have people out there, don’t we?” I asked.

“Yeah. We got a couple of teams out there. They should be back in an hour or two, hopefully with supplies, unless something fatal happens to them. I know we’re supposed to serve and protect, but I think it’s pointless to send people out there now unless it’s to get food or water. Power is slowly going down across the city from what some of the stations say. We’re fucked, and everybody knows it. We gotta start thinking about keeping our own asses safe above citizen Joe, as shitty as that line of thinking is,” the sergeant said in a grim tone.

Jamison and I nodded in agreement. Normally, I’d be all about helping people out in a crisis but this event changed the rules about everything. I hoped that the situation would get under control shortly but I was also a realist. If the cops and military hadn’t been able to get a handle on the zombie outbreak by now, it probably wasn’t going to happen. Things had progressed way too fast and I really thought it would take a miracle to stop the advance of the undead. I just hoped that nothing else super shitty happened and that I wouldn’t have to make the decision about whether or not to eat my gun in the not so distant future.


	8. Day 3-Mid-afternoon (Guy)

** ZA: Week 1; Day 3-Mid-afternoon **

~Guy~

“ _Tabernac_!” I swore as I slammed the cupboard door shut, my food inventory taking done in depressingly record speed.

I’d intended to go grocery shopping the day before, but the zombie apocalypse shot that idea down the tubes. I did have some canned stuff and dry goods that needed cooking, but eating peas straight out of the can or trying to crunch down on uncooked Kraft Dinner was.... I wasn’t that hungry or desperate yet.

The power had gone out several hours ago after flickering off and on for what seemed like forever. I had a bar-b-que on my balcony, but the propane tank was less than half full. I didn’t want to fire it up just to boil some water or heat some peas even if I might’ve been ready to kill for a cup of coffee. There was also the fact that I was trying to conserve what water I had. With the power off I didn’t think there was going to be much more coming out of the taps as without electricity to power the pump, not a lot of water was going to be getting up to the fifth floor where I lived.

At least my stock taking of what I had in my apartment in general had turned up something incredibly useful. I’d been up to my eyeballs in work and forgotten that I’d finally gotten in a replacement part for my Hammerli 208S just the day before the whole world went to hell in a hand basket. I’d shoved the part into my safe with my disassembled pistol until I could grab the five minutes I needed to switch out the defective part with the new one. My one problem was ammo and the lack of it.

I was seriously regretting keeping the bulk of my firearms at my parents house right about now.

I had bullets, just not anywhere near what I thought I needed. To be perfectly honest, I didn’t think I’d have enough ammo to keep my ass safe even if I had an entire pallet sitting in my living room. The twenty-seven I had left out of the original fifty in the box was looking mighty dismal to me. I’d seen enough zombie movies to know to aim for the head. I’d make the absolute most out of the ammo I had, and I was supremely confident that every shot would be one that counted. I’d been on the Canadian Olympic shooting team in the last two summer Olympics and on the biathlon team as an alternate in the previous winter Olympics.

But it was still only twenty-seven bullets.

I went out to my balcony and viewed the street below. Nothing with any sense of self-preservation moved on the street. Zombies wandered around aimlessly or stood in one spot for what seemed like hours at a time. I’d noticed that they reacted to noise, movement and bright light. Some seemed to move faster than others, but I had no idea why.

One thing was certain. I wasn’t going to be able to hole up in my apartment forever. I was going to need food and water soon. Getting out of the city seemed like a good idea, but I was about as unprepared to make a break for it as I could be. I had a motor bike in the underground parking of my building, but I was hella nervous to go down there and start it up. For one thing, I had no idea if the place was clear of zombies or crawling with them. There was only a simple metal arm that barred the entrance of the garage from non-residents. You needed to swipe a key card to make the arm raise, but that wouldn’t happen without power. I could, however, drive my bike around it easily enough. There was also the fact that the sound of me starting the bike would echo like crazy and be like ringing a freaking dinner bell. Trying to run over zombies on a bike really didn’t seem like a good idea to me.

I also needed a plan to go somewhere and get supplies. There was no point in just driving around the city, hoping I’d spot something useful. That would be a waste of gas, and there was still the noise factor of the bike that would draw the zombies to me like flies on fresh shit. The city was oddly quiet without the constant rumble of traffic and people on the streets. That by itself was damn creepy.

Two hours later, I had a list of things I thought I’d need. Ammo, guns, camping gear, fishing equipment, first aid kit, water purification tablets, sturdy hiking boots or steel toe boots, hunting knives, rope... The list seemed to go on and on, and I had some serious doubts I’d be able to manage all that on my bike. I’d either have to pare down my list or figure out how the fuck I could get my jeep out of the garage without raising one hell of a racket or damaging my jeep by busting through the security arm.

There was only one place fairly close by that would have almost everything on my list. Canadian Tire. They didn’t sell guns anymore, but they still sold ammo. My Hammerli 208S would work just fine for zombie killing, and .22 ammo was common enough to find anywhere. Hell, if I had the right tools, I could make my own ammo for it. I wouldn’t mind getting my hands on a nice rifle or shotgun. A 9mm would be damn useful, too, and if I was being brutally practical, I could probably pick up those from abandoned police cars or dead officers.

I had over a dozen very fine weapons and ammunition safely stored at my parents’ house that would see to all my gun needs. Problem was, they lived out by the airport, and I lived downtown and a drive that would normally take me thirty minutes in good traffic would be nightmarish now. I also wasn’t entirely sure I wanted to see my parents turned into one of those shambling... things wandering the street. A part of me did want to go home and put them down, but another part of me felt sick at the thought of shooting the people I loved in the head as a kindness.

I sighed softly knowing I wasn’t going to attempt the trip to my parents’ house with only twenty-seven bullets to my name. Canadian Tire was now my goal. Things were still a little crazy in the streets. I could hear gunfire and screams now and again, and the last thing I wanted to do was get my ass shot off by some terrified, trigger-happy idiot. I could wait a few more days to venture out. I should probably use the time to scope out the stairwells of my building and maybe even poke my head into the garage to see if it’d been overrun by the walking dead before I stumbled blindly into a situation I was not ready for.

Thinking about my upcoming trip to the Canadian Tire, I sighed again. I really should’ve manned up when I’d had the chance and asked the manager, Tracey, out. I’d caught him staring at my ass a few times when I was in the store, and the blush on his cheeks when he knew he’d been caught was cute as hell. It would’ve been a bit of a gamble to ask him out, but he practically screamed “geektacular gay dude”. Now I’d never have the chance to find out if his brand of geek was the new sexy that I was pretty sure it was.


	9. Day 4-Late afternoon (Tracey)

** ZA: Week 1; Day 4-Late Afternoon **

~Tracey~

It was getting down to crunch time.

I stood on my balcony and scanned the street through my binoculars. Uninfected people were a rarity on the street now. There were quite a few zombies, but I didn’t think I’d have a whole lot of trouble avoiding them as long as I was smart about it. I’d be riding my ebike when I left, and it was not only quiet but could move at a good clip and certainly faster than a pedal bike. Swerving around or outpacing zombies shouldn’t be a problem with a top speed of thirty klicks.

I had a backpack, stuffed with the essentials, all ready to go. I wasn’t planning on coming back to my apartment after I left. There was still food and water, enough for a couple of weeks really, but staying in the city was only going to become more and more dangerous. The uninfected would start to get desperate as food supplies and fresh water ran low. The zombies could become more aggressive as the number of available snacking opportunities grew smaller and smaller.

Staying in the city was a death warrant as far as I could see.

I was leaving the city, and I planned to do that by boat since I was sure the roads were going to be an abandoned, car-jammed horror show. There were any number of boats located all along the harbour front from day-use speed boats to boats that you could live on year round. I didn’t own a boat, but considering that the original owners were probably zombie food, I wasn’t too bothered by the idea of “liberating” one. A sailboat was probably my best bet as I wouldn’t need to worry about gas or finding keys to start the boat. The one kink in my plan was that I really didn’t know much beyond the basics of how to sail a boat. Unfortunately, I’d never found the time to get more than the half dozen lessons in before the ZA happened. I was still pretty confident that I could get it out of the harbour slip since I only needed a trawling motor to do that.

My back up plan involved taking a kayak or canoe from the boat rental place near Queen’s Quay and heading out of the city that way. It’d suck to have to paddle away from the city, but at the same time, I’d head for the Islands and could steal a boat from the yacht club there. I was no fitness champion, but the Islands were only about two kilometers away from the ferry docks. I could reduce that to only two hundred meters if I left from the Bathurst dock to the Island airport, but there wasn’t any boat rental place near there, and I didn’t want to fuck around trying to inflate a boat with god only knew how many zombies in the area. And I’d also have to travel the entire length of the Islands to get to the yacht club. That seemed like just asking for trouble to run up and fuck me hard. There was a risk of somebody trying to blow my head off if they saw me screwinging around with a boat I didn’t own, but I was going to run that risk regardless of where I tried to steal a boat from.

The population on the Islands was roughly six hundred people, and I was willing to bet that some of the residents never made it back to the Islands from their day jobs in the city once all hell broke loose. So there was probably even fewer people there than normal. There was even the possibility that the ZA hadn’t hit the Islands because it was separated from the city by a good chunk of water, but I wasn’t counting on it.

I heard a noise and turned to see my neighbour from across the hall, Mr. Warity, shuffling across Mrs. Cellinski’s balcony towards me. He made some sort of noise that made my skin crawl as he bumped up against the metal railing. He reached his arms out towards me, his hands making grasping motions as he started to grunt. I was extremely grateful for the separate balconies and the eight feet of open space between mine and hers at that moment, knowing that there was no way he could possibly reach me.

I heard metal groan as it protested the four hundred plus pounds of literal dead weight bearing on it. I watched with a sort of fascinated horror as he continued to try to reach me and the metal started to bow under a weight it was probably never designed to hold back. I jumped when the metal gave way with a loud shriek. Mr. Warity pitched forward into nothingness without a scream. My stomach heaved at the sound of him hitting the pavement below. It took me several minutes to work up the courage to look over the edge of my balcony.

I wished I hadn’t.

Although the fall was only about twelve feet, when you were talking about a man that large, dead several days, doing what was basically a belly flop onto asphalt, the results were not pretty. The impact appeared to have split his guts open and broke his arms and one of his legs. Despite all that, he was trying to push himself up to stand. The sight of the jagged ends of bone pushing through the skin made my stomach churn. I would’ve left him alone as he was not much of a threat now, but he was flopping around less than a ten feet from where my bike was parked, and I needed clear access to that to be able to get away.

_Fuck._

I stalked into my apartment and grabbed my crossbow. I hated the idea of wasting an arrow, but consoled myself with the thought that I needed to do it, and I could always retrieve the arrow when I left tomorrow. I loaded the arrow, cocked the string and took aim at the top of Mr. Warity’s head. The crossbow barely made any sound as it loosed the arrow. There was a soft crunch as it went through Mr. Warity’s skull, and he stopped moving. Some trick of the wind wafted the smell of his corpse up to me, and I barely kept from gagging.

I backed into the wall behind me and slid down to sit on the floor. It was one thing to know you might need to turn a friend or neighbour’s head into a canoe. It was a totally different thing to actually do it. I felt sick, and my chest was suddenly tight with emotion. Whiskers tickled my bare arm, and a soft, furry head bumped my hand demanding a scratch and offering comfort. Before I knew it, I had two and a half pounds of affectionate, giant pouched rat snuggling in my lap.

“That was horrible, Precious. I mean, I knew it might come up at some point that I’d have to put down somebody that I knew, but I didn’t think it’d be this soon. Or that it’d be somebody I knew quite so well.”

Precious bruxed at me and pushed her head harder into my palm. I stroked her silky fur for a long time, trying to empty my head of the sight of Mr. Warity going splat and the sound of the arrow piercing his brain. I was glad that I planned to leave my apartment tomorrow. I really didn’t want to stay longer, especially with a rotting corpse under my balcony.


End file.
